'The Necessity of Religion' was a lecture delivered by Swami Vivekananda in England in June 1896. While we have no intention of making any judgement on the editing of Swami Vivekananda's works, we feel it is important to point out that his lectures were edited. Much was done with his permission - in fact at his instruction, since generally people speak differently than how they would write, and some editing was done after his death.

We have taken
the above lecture as it appeared in the 1902 edition of Jnana Yoga and compared it with the version that currently appears in the Complete
Works. The words in red are those
which appear only in the 1902 edition. Those in blue appear in the Complete works (present) edition. Those
in black of course are the words that are unchanged from 1902….

No sentences
were changed in their order, but a few sentences found in the original were
removed. Otherwise most of the changes were words within a sentence….

If nothing
else, the older version might give a greater sense of what the Swami actually
said to his audience on this occasion.

The NECESSITY
OF RELIGION

Of all the
forces that have worked and are still working to mould the destinies of the
human race, none, certainly, is more potent than that, the manifestation of
which we call religion. All social organisations have
as a background, somewhere, the workings of that peculiar force, and the
greatest cohesive impulse ever brought into play amongst human units has been
derived from this power of religion. It is
obvious to all of us that in very many cases the bonds of religion have proved
stronger than the bonds of race, (or)of climate, or
even of descent. It is a well-known fact that persons worshipping the same God,
believing in the same religion, have stood by each other, with much greater
strength and constancy, than people of merely the same descent, or even
brothers. Various attempts have been made to trace the beginnings of religion.
In all the ancient religions which have come down to us at the present day, we
find one claim made--that they are all supernatural, that their genesis is not,
as it were, in the human brain, but that they have originated somewhere outside
of it.

Two theories
have gained some acceptance amongst modern scholars. One is the spirit theory
of religion, the other the evolution (of the idea) of the Infinite. One party maintains that ancestor worship is the beginning of
religious ideas; the other, that religion originates in the personification of
the powers of nature. Man wants to keep up the
memory of his dead relatives and thinks they are living even when the body has been(is) dissolved, and he wants to place food for them and, in a certain sense, to
worship them. Out of that came the growth we call religion.

Studying the
ancient religions of the Egyptians, Babylonians, Chinese, and many other races
in
America
and elsewhere, we find very clear traces of this ancestor worship being the
beginning of religion. With the ancient Egyptians, the first idea of the soul
was that of a double. This physical man (Every human body) contained in it another being very
similar to it; and when a man died, this double went
out of the body and yet lived on. But the life of the double lasted only so
long as the dead body remained intact, and that is why we find among the
Egyptians so much solicitude to keep the body intact(uninjured). (And) that is why they built those
huge pyramids in which they preserved the bodies. For, if any portion of the
external body was hurt, just so would the double be hurt would be
correspondingly injured. This is clearly ancestor worship. With the
ancient Babylonians we find the same idea of the double, but with a variation.
The double lost all sense of love; it frightened the living to give it food and
drink, and to help it in various ways. It even lost all affection for its own
children (and) its own wife or daughter. Among the ancient Hindus also, we find
traces of this ancestor worship. Among the Chinese, the basis of their religion
may also be said to be clearly ancestor worship,
and it still permeates the length and breadth of that vast country. In fact,
the only religion that can really be said to flourish in
China
is that
of ancestor worship. Thus it seems, on the one hand, a very good position is
made out for those who hold to the theory of
ancestor worship as the beginning of religion.

On the other
hand, there are scholars who go back to(from the) ancient Aryan literature (show that religion originated in nature worship.)
Although in
India
we find proofs of ancestor worship everywhere, yet in the oldest records there
is no trace of it whatsoever. In the Rig-Veda Samhita,
the most ancient record of the Aryan race, we do not find any trace of it at all. Modern scholars think it is the worship of
nature that they find there. The human mind seems to struggle to get a peep
behind the scenes. The dawn, the evening, the hurricane, the stupendous and
gigantic forces of nature, its beauties, these have exercised the human mind,
and it aspires to go beyond, to understand something about them. In the
struggle they endow these phenomena with personal attributes, giving them souls and bodies, sometimes beautiful, sometimes
transcendent. Every attempt ends by these phenomena becoming abstractions
whether personalised or not. So also it is found with
the ancient Greeks; their whole mythology is simply this abstracted nature
worship. So also with the ancient Germans, the Scandinavians,
and all the other Aryan races. Thus, on this side, too, a very strong
case has been made out, that religion has its origin in the personification of
the powers(forces) of nature.

These two
views, though they seem to be contradictory, can be reconciled on a third
basis, which, to my mind, is the real germ of religion, and that I propose to
call the struggle to transcend the limitations of the senses. Either, man goes to seek for the spirits of his ancestors, or the spirits of the dead, or (that is,) he wants to get a glimpse of what
there is after the body is dissolved, or, he
desires to understand the power working behind the stupendous phenomena of
nature. Whichever of these is the case, one thing is certain, that he is trying(tries) to
transcend the limitations of the senses. He cannot remain satisfied with his
senses; he wants to go beyond them. The explanation need not be mysterious. To
me it seems very natural that the first glimpse
of religion should come through dreams. The first idea of immortality man must(may well) get
through dreams. Is (that) not the dream state a most wonderful state? (And) we know that children and untutored minds find
very little difference between dreaming and their waking(awakened) state. What can be more natural than
that they find, as natural logic, that even during the sleep state when the
body is apparently dead, the mind goes on with all its intricate workings? What
wonder that men will at once come to the conclusion that when this body is
dissolved for ever, the same working will go
on? This, to my mind, would be a more natural explanation of the supernatural,
and through this dream idea the human mind rises to higher and higher concepts (conceptions).
Of course, in time, the vast majority of mankind found out that these dreams were(are) not
verified by their waking(awakened) states, and that during the dream state it is not that
man has a fresh existence, but simply that he recapitulates the experiences of
the awakened state.

But by this
time the search had begun, and the search was inward, and they(man) continued to inquire(inquiring) more deeply into the different stages of the mind and discovered higher states
than either the waking or the dreaming. This state of things we find in all the organised religions of the world, called either a state of ecstasy or inspiration. In all organised religions, their founders, prophets, and
messengers are declared to have gone into states of mind which(that) were
neither waking nor sleeping, but states in which
they came face to face with a new series of facts,
those relating to what is called the spiritual kingdom. They realised things there in a much
more intensesense (intensely) than we realise facts around us in our waking state. Take, for instance, the religions of the
Brahmins. The Vedas are said to be written by Rishis.
These Rishis were sages who realised certain facts. The exact definition of the Sanskrit word (Rishi) is (a)“The Seer of theMantrams(Mantras) --of the thoughts conveyed in the
Vedic hymns. These men declared that they had realised--sensed,
if that word can be used with regard to the supersensuous--certain
facts, and these facts they proceeded to put on record. We find the same thing(truth) declared among(amongst) both the Jews and the Christians.

Some
exceptions may be taken in the case of the Buddhists as represented by the
Southern sect. It may be asked--if the Buddhists do not believe in any God or a soul, how can their religion be derived from this(the)supersensuous state of existence? The answer to this is
that even the Buddhists find an eternal moral law, and that moral law was not
reasoned out in our sense of the word. But Buddha found it, discovered it, in a supersensuous state. Those of you who have studied
the life of Buddha, even as shortly(briefly) given in that beautiful poem, “The Light of
Asia,” may remember that Buddha is represented as sitting under the Bo-tree
until he reached that supersensuous state of mind.
All his teachings came through this, and not through intellectual cogitations.

Thus, here is a tremendous statement (is) made by all religions; that this(the) human mind, at certain moments,
transcends not only the limitations of the senses, but also the power of
reasoning. It then comes face to face with facts which it could never have
sensed, could never have reasoned out. These facts are the basis of all the
religions of the world. Of course we have the right to challenge these facts,
to put them to the test of reason. Nevertheless, all the existing religions of
the world claim for the human mind this peculiar power of transcending the
limits of the senses and the limits of reason; and this power they put forward
as a statement of fact.

Apart from
the consideration of the question how far these facts claimed by religions are true, we find one characteristic common to them all. They
are all abstractions as contrasted with the concrete discoveries of physics,
for instance; and in all the highly organised religions they take the purest form of Unit Abstraction, either in the form of
an Abstracted Presence, as an Omnipresent Being, as an Abstract Personality
called God, as a Moral Law, or in the form of an Abstract Essence underlying
every existence. In modern times, too, the attempts made to preach religions
without appealing to the supersensuous state of the mind have had to take up the old abstractions of
the Ancients and put(give) different names to them as "Moral Law", the "Ideal Unity",
and so forth, thus showing that these abstractions are not in the senses. None
of us have yet seen an "Ideal Human Being", and yet we are told to
believe in (it)an
ideal human being. None of us have yet seen an ideally perfect man, and
yet without that ideal we cannot progress. Thus, this one fact stands out from
all these different religions, that there is an Ideal Unit Abstraction, and this is either (which
is) put before us, (either) in the form
of a Person or as an Impersonal Being, or as(a) Law, or a
Presence, or an Essence. We are always struggling to raise ourselves up to that
ideal. Every human being, whosoever and wheresoever he may be, has an ideal of infinite power. Every human being has an ideal of
infinite pleasure. Most of the works that we find around us, the activities
displayed everywhere, are due to the struggle for this infinite power or this
infinite pleasure. But a few quickly discover that although they are struggling
for infinite power, it is not through the senses that it can be reached. They
find out very soon that that infinite pleasure is not to be got through the
senses, or, in other words, the senses are too limited, and the body is too
limited, to express the Infinite. To manifest the Infinite through the finite
is impossible, and sooner or later, man learns to give up the attempt to
express the Infinite through the finite. This giving up, this renunciation of
the attempt, is the background of ethics. Renunciation is the very basis upon
which ethics stands. There never was an ethical code preached which had not
renunciation for its basis.

Ethics always
says, "Not I, but thou." Its motto is, "Not self, but
non-self." The vain ideas of individualism, to which man clings when he is
trying to find that Infinite Power or that Infinite Pleasure through the
senses, have to be given up--say the laws of ethics. You have to put yourself last, and others before you. The senses say, "Myself
first." Ethics says, "I must hold myself last." Thus, all codes
of ethics are based upon this renunciation; destruction, not construction, of
the individual on the material plane. That Infinite will never find expression
upon the material plane, nor is it possible or thinkable.

So, man had(has) to give up
the plane of matter and rise to other spheres to seek a deeper expression of
that Infinite. In this way the various ethical laws are being moulded, but all have that one central idea, eternal
self-abnegation. Perfect self-annihilation is the ideal of ethics. People are
startled if they are asked not to think of their individualities. Everybodyseems(They seem) so very much afraid of losing what he calls his (they call
their) individuality. At the same time, the same men would declare the
highest ideals of ethics to be right, never for a moment thinking that the
scope, the goal, the idea of all ethics is the destruction, and not the
building up, of the individual.

Utilitarian
standards cannot explain the ethical relations of men, for, in the first place, we cannot derive any ethical laws from considerations of
utility. Without the supernatural sanction as it is called, or the perception
of the superconscious as I prefer to term it, there
can be no ethics. Without the struggle towards the Infinite there can be no
ideal. Any system that wants to bind men down within(to) the limits of their own societies would not(is not) able to find an explanation for the ethical laws of mankind. The Utilitarian
wants us to give up all this(the) struggle
after the Infinite, all this going to (the reaching-out for) the Super-sensuous, as
impracticable and absurd, and, in the same breath, asks us to take up ethics
and do good to society. Why should we do good? Doing good is a secondary consideration. We must have an ideal.
Ethics itself is not the end, but the means to the end. If the end is not
there, why should we be ethical? Why should I do good to other men, and not injure them? If happiness be(is) the goal of mankind, why should I not make
myself happy and others unhappy? What prevents me? In the second place, the
basis of utility is too narrow. All these(the current social) forms and methods are derived
from society as it exists, but what right has the Utilitarian to assume that
society is eternal? Society did not exist ages ago, possibly will not exist
ages hence. Most probably it is one of the passing stages through which we are
going towards a higher evolution, and any law that is derived from society
alone cannot be eternal, cannot cover the whole ground of man's nature. At
best, therefore, Utilitarian theories can only work under present social
conditions. Beyond that they have no value. But a morality, an ethical code,
derived from religion and spirituality, has the whole of infinite man for its
scope. It takes up the individual, but its relations are to the Infinite, and
it takes up society also--because society is nothing but numbers of these
individuals grouped together; and applying(as it applies) to the individual and his eternal
relations, it must necessarily apply to the whole of society, in whatever
condition it may be at any given time. Thus we see that there is always the
necessity of spiritual religion for mankind. Man cannot always think of matter,
however pleasurable it may be.

It has been
said that too much attention to things spiritual disturbs our practical
relations in this world. As long ago (far back) as (in) the days of the Chinese sage Confucius, it was said, "Let us take care of
this world: and then, when we have finished with this world, we will take care
of other worlds(world)."
It is all very well that we should take care of
this world and let the other go. But though (if) too much
attention to the spirit(spiritual) may hurt(affect) a little our practical relations, yet too much
attention to the so-called practical hurts us here and hereafter. It makes us
materialistic. For man is not to regard nature as his goal, but something
higher than nature.

Man is man so
long as he is struggling to rise above nature, and this nature is both internal
and external. Not only does nature(it) comprise the laws that govern the particles of
matter outside us and in our bodies, but there is(also) the more subtle nature inside us(within),
which is, in fact, the motive power which is governing the external and the internal nature.
It is good and very grand to conquer external nature, but grander still to
conquer the internal nature of man(our internal nature). It is grand and good to know
the laws that govern the stars and planets; it is infinitely grander and better
to know the laws that govern the passions, the feelings, the will, of mankind. This conquering of the inner man, understanding the secrets
of the subtle workings that are within the human mind, and knowing its
wonderful secrets, belong entirely to religion. Human nature--the ordinary
human nature, I mean--wants to see big material facts. Ordinary
mankind(The ordinary man) cannot
understand anything that is subtle. Well has it been said that mobs would run after (the
masses admire the)a lion that couldkill(kills) a thousand lambs, and never for a moment think(thinking) that it is death unto(to) the lambs, although it
may be a momentary triumph for the lion; because in that the mob finds (they find pleasure
only in manifestations)the greatest
manifestation of physical strength. Thus (it
is) with the ordinary run of mankind,(.) (T)they understand and find pleasure
in everything that is external. But in every society there is a section whose
pleasures are not in the senses, but beyond, and who now and then catch
glimpses of something higher than matter and want to struggle thither(to
reach it.) And if we read the history of nations between the lines, we
shall always find that the rise of a nation comes with an increase in the
number of such men in soiciety;
and the fall begins when this pursuit after the Infinite, however vain Utilitarians may call it, has ceased. That is to say, the
mainspring of the strength of every race lies in the
spirituality manifested in religion (its
spirituality), and the death of that race begins the day that
spirituality wanes and materialism begins(gains ground.)

Thus, apart
from the solid facts and truths that we may learn from religion, apart from the
comforts that we may gain therefrom(from it,) religion itself,
as a science, as a study, is the greatest and healthiest exercise that the
human mind can have. This pursuit of the Infinite, this struggle to grasp the
Infinite, this effort to get beyond the limitations of the senses--out of
matter, as it were--and to evolve the spiritual man—instead
of filling the mind with low, narrow and little ideals; this striving
day and night to make the Infinite one with our being--this struggle itself is
the grandest and most glorious that man can make. Some persons find the
greatest pleasure in eating. We have no right to say that they should not.
Others find the greatest pleasure in possessing certain things. We have no
right to say (that) they should not. But they
also have no right to say "no" to the man who finds his highest
pleasure in spiritual thought. The lower the organisation,
the more is(greater) the pleasure in the senses. Very few men can eat a meal with the same gusto that (as) a dog or a
wolf can. But all the pleasures of the dog or
the wolf have gone, as it were, into the senses, into
that eating. The lower types of humanity in all nations find pleasure in
the senses, while the cultured and the educated find it in thought, in
philosophy, in the arts and sciences. Spiritual thought(Spirituality) is a still higher plane. The subject being infinite, that plane is the highest,
and the pleasure there is the highest for those who (can) appreciate it. So, even on the utilitarian ground that man is to seek
for pleasure, he should cultivate religious thought, for that(it) is the highest pleasure
that exists. Thus religion, as a study, seems to me to be absolutely necessary.

We can see it
in its effects. It is the greatest motive power that moves the human mind. No
other ideal can put into us the same mass of energy as the spiritual. So far as
human history goes, it is obvious to all of us that this has been the case and (that) its powers are not dead. I do not deny that
men, on simply utilitarian grounds, can be very good and moral. There have been
many great men in this world perfectly sound, and moral, and good, simply on utilitarian grounds. But the world-movers, men who
bring, as it were, a mass of magnetism into the world, whose spirit works in
hundreds and in thousands, whose life produces a halo
around them wherever they go, igniting (ignites) others with a spiritual fire--such men, we always find, had(have) that spiritual
background. The(Their) motive power of their energy came from religion.
Religion is the greatest motive power to realise(for realizing) that infinite energy which is the birthright and nature of every man. Nothing can compare with religion there. In building
up character, in making for everything that is good and great, in bringing
peace to others and peace to one's own self, religion is the highest motive
power and, religion (therefore),
ought to be studied therefore from that
standpoint. Religion must be studied on a broader basis than formerly. All
narrow, limited, fighting ideas of religion have to go. All sect ideas and
tribal or national ideas of religion have to go (must be given up.)All sect
ideas and tribal or national ideas of religion must be given up. (That) each tribe or nation having (should have) its own particular God and thinking(think) that
every other is wrong is (a) superstition that
should belong to the past. All such ideas must be abandoned.

As the human
mind broadens, its spiritual steps broaden (too).
The time has already come when a man cannot record a thought without its
reaching to all corners of the earth; by merely physical means, we have come
into touch with the whole world; so the future religions of the world have to
become as universal, as wide.

The religious
ideals of the future must embrace all that exists in the world that(and) is good and
great, and, at the same time, have infinite scope for future development. All
that was good in the past must be preserved and kept;
and yet the doors must be (kept) open for future addition(additions) to this (the) already existing store. Religions must also be
inclusive.(,)Religions must(and) not look down with contempt upon people who have not
the particular ideal (one another, because
their particular ideals) of God (are different) which governs their special sect. In my
life I have seen a great many spiritual men, a great many sensible persons, who
did not believe in God at all, that is to say, not in our sense of the word.
Perhaps they understood God better than we can ever do. The Personal idea of God or the Impersonal, the Infinite, the Moral Law, or the Ideal Man--these all have to come under the definition of religion. And when religions have become thus
broadened, their power for good will have increased a hundred
times beyond the present (hundredfold).
Religions, having tremendous power in them, have often done more injury to the
world than good, simply on account of their narrowness and limitations.

Even at the
present time we find many sects and societies, with almost the same ideas,
fighting each other, because one does not want to set forth those ideas in
precisely the same way as the other(another). Therefore, religions will have to broaden.
Religious ideas will have to become universal, vast, and infinite; and then
alone we shall have the fullest play of religion, for the power of religion has
only just begun to manifest in the world. It is sometimes said that religions
are dying out, that spiritual ideas are dying out of the world. To me it seems
that they have just begun (to grow). The power
of religion, broadened and purified, is going to penetrate every part of human
life. So long as religion was in the hands of a chosen few or of a body of
priests, it was in the temples, it was in the churches, it was
in the books, in dogmas, in ceremonials, forms, and rituals. (But when we) When men have come to the real, universal, spiritual, (universal) concept, then, and then alone, religion
will become real and living; it will come into our very nature, live in (our) every movement of the
human being, it will penetrate every pore of (our) society, and be infinitely more a power for good than it has ever been before.

What is
needed is a fellow-feeling between the different types of religion, seeing that
they all stand or fall together, a fellow-feeling which springs from mutual
esteem and mutual respect, and not the condescending, patronising,
niggardly expression of goodwill, unfortunately in vogue at the present time
with many. And above all, this is needed between types of religious expression
coming from the study of mental phenomena--unfortunately, even now laying
exclusive claim to the name of religion--and those expressions of religion
whose heads, (as it were), are penetrating more
into the secrets of heaven though their feet are clinging to the earth, (I mean), the so-called materialistic sciences.

To bring
about this harmony, both will have to make concessions, sometimes very large,
nay more, sometimes painful, but after all each
will find itself (the) better for the sacrifice
and more advanced in truth. And in the end, the knowledge which has its basis in changes in time, and that which is founded
on changes in space both (is confined within
the domain of time and space) will meet and become one where there is neither space nor time, (with that which is beyond them both), where the mind cannot reach nor the senses (and senses cannot reach)--the Absolute, the
Infinite, the One without a second.